Housing

21 December 2017

UNITED KINGDOM: Housing market impacted by immigration

A think tank in the UK, Migration Watch, has recently criticised projections published in a report by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) back in 2014. In the report the DCLG projects the number of households which need to increase in order to support the population up until 2039.

The reason that Migration Watch have published their recent briefing paper criticising the approach of the DCLG follows a statement made by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in February 2017 that “two thirds of housing demand has nothing to do with immigration”.

The report attributes only 37% of the projected growth to net migration while Migration Watch believe that this number is incorrect because the current level of immigration is actually much higher than the level the DCLG has based their projection on.

Further to this Migration Watch state that the ‘’DCLG projections only address the impact of future net migration on housing demand’’, completely ignoring the impact that the current migrant population will have on future housing demands.

The DCLG has claimed that the number of households that need to be added per year is 240,000 however a House of Lords Select Committee in Economic Affairs believe that the correct number should be around 300,000 and Migration Watch supports that figure.

Ultimately, Migration Watch want the focus of the debate to shift from supply to demand in order to better anticipate housing needs. If Governmental bodies are underestimating the influence of immigration then the consequence can led to future shortages of housing.

On 18 December they published an update with regards to housing and their suggestion is to either reduce net migration to a sustainable level or a very large house building project will have to continue indefinitely in order to build more homes.

To read the full report from Migration Watch please go to the following link: https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/424

For the 18 December update please go to the following link: https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/key-topics/housing

How does this affect the client?

If the UK Government continues to underestimate the effect of migration on housing and the numbers of migrants coming to the UK per year remain the same then the housing crisis in the coming years will deepen even further. This can effect employers with foreign nationals coming to the UK since they may not be able to find appropriate housing and costs will continue to increase.